Death of Andrew Sadek

Andrew Sadek was a 20-year-old student at the North Dakota State College of Science (NDSCS) in Wahpeton, North Dakota, studying to become an electrical technician, and was described by family and teachers as quiet and shy. In April 2013, he began selling marijuana to other students on campus, including a fellow student working as a confidential informant for the South East Multi-County Agency Narcotics Task Force (SEMCA). After a November 2013 search of his dorm room turned up drug residue, a SEMCA officer told him he could face a Class A felony charge and up to 40 years in prison for selling marijuana on a college campus. Sadek agreed to work as an informant himself in exchange for the charges being dropped, and made several controlled buys under police supervision before losing contact with SEMCA after a buy in January 2014, without completing the purchases he still owed.

Sadek was last seen on dormitory security video leaving Nordgaard Hall after 2 a.m. on May 1, 2014, carrying a backpack; his phone was with him but turned off. When he missed classes and did not return, friends reported him missing. SEMCA, believing he had fled to avoid further informant work, had him formally charged with the two felonies and sought his arrest. Nearly two months later, on June 27, 2014, a police dive team on a training exercise found his body in the Red River near Breckenridge, Minnesota, across from Wahpeton; he was identified through dental records.

An autopsy found that Sadek died of a small-caliber gunshot wound to the head; investigators could not establish whether it was self-inflicted, and the weapon was never located despite repeated searches. The backpack found with his body had been filled with rocks, and his wallet and the sweatshirt seen on camera were missing; his body instead wore an unfamiliar jacket. His mother, Tammy Sadek, said a planned river search had been delayed and that campus police had not adequately pursued the possibility of homicide, noting that a .22-caliber pistol was missing from the family home even though her son had shown no suicidal signs, left no note, and had graduation only two weeks away. She also said the family found his car's interior soaked with water when it was returned to them. The manner of Sadek's death has never been officially determined.

At Tammy Sadek's request, North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem convened a panel of veteran law enforcement officers to review SEMCA's handling of the case. Its report, published in 2015, found SEMCA had largely followed proper procedure but recommended the task force come under state Bureau of Criminal Investigation oversight, a change adopted by the end of that year. Tammy Sadek said the review was not truly independent.

A December 2015 CBS News 60 Minutes segment comparing Sadek's case to another NDSCS student's informant work helped prompt "Andrew's Law," which reduced campus marijuana penalties and added informant protections; it passed the state House of Representatives in February 2017 and the state Senate in April 2017 before being signed into law. Separately, Sadek's parents sued Richland County and SEMCA officer Jason Weber for wrongful death, alleging the county failed to properly train and oversee Sadek and misrepresented the punishment he faced if he did not cooperate. A district court granted summary judgment for the defense in 2019, upheld by the North Dakota Supreme Court in 2020; a later post-judgment motion by the family was also denied and upheld on appeal in 2023. A documentary about the case, The Dakota Entrapment Tapes, premiered in 2020.